


The Only One

by setosdarkness



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmates AU...with a twist, aka the "falling in love with the one who killed your soulmate" AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4779461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setosdarkness/pseuds/setosdarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hakuryuu meets his soulmate like this: a bloody mess in the hands of a man with blood-red eyes.</p><p>[a "falling in love with the one who killed your soulmate" AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Only One (For Me)

***

They say that having a soulmate, that finding your better half, is the one thing that makes living in this world worth it. Things like wealth and fame can be stolen, but having a soulmate cannot be changed by anyone.

It's the one aspect of one's life that cannot be altered, no matter what.

Ren Hakuryuu has lived his life thinking that is the truth. 

The world lives on thinking that is the truth.

What does it mean then, to find the soulmate that you've been wanting to meet - the one person who's supposed to be on your side no matter what - finding that person buried under the beautifully, tragically, blooming flowers of wisteria-red blood?

What does it mean then, to find a monster swathed in black, except for the red eyes and red hands, in place of the one person meant to be by his side?

***

 **The Only One (For Me)**  

***

_in winter;_

*** 

Hakuryuu loses his family and his bright future on a strike of blinding lightning-like ferocity, white fire licking into the edges of the stable box that has been his home and family. It happens without warning - one day, Hakuryuu enjoys the safety offered by the smiles of his respectable older brothers and the next thing he knows, he's crying tears licked clean by the fire that surrounds him in a scorching embrace.

He doesn't know what is happening.

He doesn't understand why this kind of cruelty is happening to his brothers, to his family, to _him_.

He doesn't think he'll ever understand the reason.

But his brothers hold him close, bathing him with their slick-black blood, in a futile attempt to shield him from the fiery hands burning everything around him. His brothers hold him close and they ask him with words born of anger and hatred and the desire to not die - they ask him to avenge them.

They don't ask him to understand what's going on.

Hakuryuu keeps their words, their last wishes, close to his heart and vows to fulfill his duty as the sole survivor of this menacing turn of events.

He manages to survive, not unscathed, the great fire carved into his skin in terrible jagged lines, burnt skin interlaced with pale-from-being-caged-at-home skin. He manages to survive, his mind not unscathed, with the findings that the recipient of his revenge is an organization led by the person he's loath to call his mother. He manages to survive, his spirit not unscathed, with the thought that he's truly alone in this quest for revenge.

His sister is deep within that woman's clutches, her eyes blinded by the man that Gyokuen has introduced as Kouen, the ever-faithful man who will help lead the broken family, the broken political and business dynasty left behind.

He doesn't have anyone he can consider an ally.

Hakuryuu spends the next ten years in a very long winter, recovering, but unable to heal, inside the gilded cage of that woman and her organization.

The gray-white of the winter brands itself in Hakuryuu's eyes, as he looks upon the world with a wretched feeling of loss.

Hakuryuu longs for his soulmate, the one person that the world dictates to belong to him. Hakuryuu longs for his ally, the one person that the world dictates to never betray him. Hakuryuu longs for his other half, the one person that the world dictates to always understand him.

Hakuryuu longs for the very long winter to end.

***  
  
_in spring;_  
  
***  
  
Hakuryuu meets Alibaba, Aladdin and Morgiana in a flurry of spring-blossoms and the green expanse of gardens and meadows and the smell of life blooming in its youth.  
It's a gamble that Hakuryuu honestly didn't expect, because he didn't think that he'd ever be free of that woman's carefully-assembled cage, no matter how much he longed for another sight other than the gray-white of winter that suffocates his gaze.

But then again, it is possible that after ten years, he has effectively appeared to be someone who is hardly a threat to whatever nefarious plans Gyokuen and her cohorts are concocting. It is possible that even ten years ago, he has never even mattered, not one whit.

It doesn't matter to Hakuryuu, because he's never really had to wonder about _reasons_.

But he sometimes catches himself thinking, as he attends classes with that trio of friends, that he'd like to spend more time with them. That he'd like to know the reason for his life, the reason behind everything, the reason behind his continued existence.

Being with them is like a fresh breath of air flushing out the stale existence of his past ten years.

The _air_ feels vibrant when he's laughing with them, when he's studying concepts with the surprisingly-intuitive Aladdin, when he's showing off how good his knowledge is despite being home-schooled all his life to the naïve, comedic and absolutely blindingly brilliant Alibaba, when he's doing his best not to trip on his own two feet when faced with the majestically strong Morgiana.

It's as though Hakuryuu's gaze is layered with life, with brilliant green, with something so airily _light_.

But even if his eyes are filled with that haze of green, he doesn't allow its light to reach his heart.

After all, he knows, from the get-go, that none amongst this trio is his soulmate.

Not Aladdin, not Alibaba and certainly not Morgiana - none of them can assure him that they won't harm him, that they won't betray him, that they won't give up on understanding him.

So Hakuryuu waits for the sign that he's about to meet his soulmate, longing for this eternal spring all the same.

***

_in summer;_

_***_

Hakuryuu sees a sign in a blaze of yellow, getting separated from the outdoors science trip, looking up at the sun above, getting momentarily blinded by the sun's glare, stumbling upon a bizarre garden of sunflowers with etched words marked in fallen petals against fertile ground.

The fallen petals spell out the words "soulmate" and "soon".

Hakuryuu exhales loudly, relief and excitement warring because he doesn't even think about how he doesn't want to bring his soulmate into his lifelong struggle against his own family. He doesn't even waste a second thinking that his soulmate _might_ think of something else, might want to stop him in his quest for revenge, might _ask_ for a reason why he's so bent on accomplishing the words that reverberate inside him during his daily nightmares.

Their world, cruelly imperfect as it is, bestows the ultimate gift to its people by providing them someone that nobody can ever take away.

Hakuryuu can't wait to meet that one person who will definitely be his ally in his lifelong quest.  
  
***  
  
_in fall_ ;

***

Hakuryuu meets his soulmate in a blaze of dizzying red.  
  
They say that having a soulmate, that finding your better half, is the one thing that makes living in this world worth it. Things like wealth and fame can be stolen, but having a soulmate cannot be changed by anyone. 

It's the one aspect of one's life that cannot be altered, no matter what.  
  
He has lived his life thinking that is the truth.

The world lives on thinking that is the truth.

He has lived until this moment, waiting for that truth to come to fruition.

What does it mean then, to find the soulmate that you've been wanting to meet - the one person who's supposed to be on your side no matter what - finding that person buried under the beautifully, tragically, blooming flowers of wisteria-red blood?

What does it mean then, to find a monster swathed in black, except for the red eyes and red hands, in place of the one person meant to be by his side? 

"Who the hell are you?" Hakuryuu asks with barely-contained rage, fists trembling by his sides, his bookbag long fallen to the floor of the warehouse where he _felt_ the tug of his soulmate's presence.  
  
The monster tilts its head, long braids swishing into view. There's casual danger in the other's aura, harmless being the furthest word to be able to describe its presence.  
  
"Hm? I'm Judar!" It introduces itself with an excited grin, shamelessly brushing off the excess blood dripping from its hands on its loose-fitting pants. "Who the hell are _you_?"

Hakuryuu bristles, danger alarms of some sort ringing in his ears. He's supposed to meet his soulmate here and instead he gets this monster. There's a pile of corpses beneath the monster's feet - his soulmate could be any one of them. This world has lied to him yet again - there's no such thing as someone who the world cannot take from you.

"I'm Ren Hakuryuu," he bites out, feeling impossibly enraged despite appearing severely outclassed. He's just a regular university student with so-so knowledge of martial arts earned from watching Alibaba and Morgiana spar for their karate club. But he still feels enraged, no exact reason behind his emotions.

But the monster's eyes brightens up, its whole expression illuminated and shifting to almost _friendly_ camaraderie. "Oh! So you're that old hag's kid! You look super pretty!"

Old hag...?

Before Hakuryuu can get the chance to voice out his confusion - the monster cuts to the punch, seemingly reading his mind.

"Oh - I mean that shitty bitch, Gyokuen, of course! You _are_ her son, right?"

" _Go to hell_ ," Hakuryuu spits out harshly, picking up his bookbag and discreetly rummaging through it if he has something he can use to stab this person's glowing red eyes.

"Ah, same, same~ we're just the same, aren't we?"

Hakuryuu couldn't care less if this monster is a spawn of Gyokuen, but the thought that he'd share a similarity with something that had taken his one ally away is revolting. "I'm going to kill you. And Gyokuen too. And the entire organization."

He's never been this talkative before, but after ten years of keeping his feelings bottled up, he's bound to reach a breaking point.

Instead of being disheartened, or even offended by the death threat, the monster claps in delight. " _Cool_! I wanna kill her too!"

"I'm going to kill you too," Hakuryuu repeats, bewildered by the other's reaction. He feels a thrum of something course through his veins, but it must be a strange sort of confusion.  
  
"Huh? Why, Hakuryuu???"  
  
Of all the things to ask!

"Because you're annoying. Because you killed my soulmate."

"I did? Wow, okay!" The monster tilts its head again, the braids swishing to the other side. Those red eyes seem to glow at him as they look at him up and down, as though _assessing_ him. "Hey, you're super interesting!"

"I'm really going to kill you," Hakuryuu promises, even if he has no idea how to make that come true, even if his lifelong quest is far from being started.  
  
The monster _looks_ at him, as though he can see right through him. "Whatever you say, Hakuryuu!"

Hakuryuu's winter ends with the gray-white haze of apathy doused with the blaze of Judar's red.


	2. The Only One (Like Me)

***

They say that having a soulmate, that finding your better half, is the one thing that makes living in this world worth it. Things like wealth and fame can be stolen, but having a soulmate cannot be changed by anyone.

It's the one aspect of one's life that cannot be altered, no matter what.

It’s the one aspect of his life that cannot be attained, no matter what.

Judar has lived his life thinking that is the truth.

The small, tiny, pale-shelled, world lives on thinking that is the truth.

What does it mean to be whispered sweet words cursing him to a life elevated away from everyone, even the possibility of having someone who is just for him, who is just like him?

What does it mean to be fated with a life of strength and power, instead of having a companion who would cause him to want to be strong and powerful?

What does it mean to be a cursed being like him?

Judar has long stopped wanting answers, just as he long stopped wanting an explanation for his life.

But somehow, somehow—

***

 **The Only One (Like Me)**  

*** 

 _in winter;_  

***

Judar’s winter is a long, ugly thing.

Everywhere he looks, he only sees masked faces, boring faces, worthless faces. It’s almost disgusting, but then, everything is disgusting to him. That’s just no way to live – so he’s probably not disgusted too much then. Disgust feels too strong a word for things that he doesn’t really care much about.

Gray and dirty white forms a haze over his eyes, something he’s thankful for so he can’t see the things that he finds annoying too clearly. Everything is annoying – the haze is really useful, _really_.

The only time the haze lifts for a moment is when he’s off firing his obscenely large and powerful minigun at unsuspecting rats, thanks to some long-worded order from Al Thamen. He’s honestly not sure if feeling that slight thrum underneath his fingers is: 

  1. Due to him being a bloodthirsty asshole (as Kouha says rather flippantly as he test-swings his sword around); OR

  2. If it’s because he just really enjoys showing off his power against powerless people, which could have originated from being in an unsafe and unstable environment that nurtured him to a life without any sense of humanity (as Koumei rambles while writing chicken-scratches into floor layouts of another family’s building); OR

  3. If it’s because he’s the chosen _magi_ of the militaristic, imperialistic mafia family that hides rather shamelessly under the guise of a multinational business company (as Kouen mumbles into the scrolls he’s burying his nose into)




Judar thinks that they’re all wrong, but nobody listens to him, truly listens to him, unless he’s yelling, “die” or “scram” or something else derogatory. He keeps those thoughts about being wrong to himself, yelling his frustrations on abandoned alleyways and closed-down amusement parks that he visits during his free time. 

There’s got to be a better explanation for the way that he practically _tingles_ whenever he receives orders from the old hag and her masked bodyguards.

It’s all very spy-movie-like, the way that he practically lurks in the shadows as he makes his way across winding corridors lined with paintings of classical dragons and rivers winding along mountains. He doesn’t agree that it’s particularly clever, the way that this family holds their meetings to discuss on who to kill next while surrounded by hectares of land and sprawls of gardens.

It’s not like the stench of death that clings to everything that is the Kou Family and Al Thamen can be hidden just by some well-maintained real estate.

When he was young, he carelessly thought that there’s _something_ with the surroundings, which makes things just the littlest bit lighter. But there’s nothing aside from trees and grass and shrubs outside; there’s nothing but grayed-out faces inside.

There’s _nothing_ here.

He has resigned himself to a lifetime with the gray veil over his eyes.

But things suddenly change, he’s suddenly much more energetic and he’s suddenly much more interested in doing one particular assignment. It’s nothing too difficult – while there are five whole floors that he needs to _clear_ , there are no strong guys that he needs to be excited about facing. It’s strange, because the last time he remembers feeling vaguely like this was when he sparred with Kouen, or even further – when he last faced off against Sinbad.

But this feeling is suddenly stronger, even while he’s simply humming a simple nonsense tune as he polishes off the barrel of his guns. He’s doing basically nothing but his entire body is thrumming with some sort of excitement that’s hard to justify. Instead of the usual bland winter with snow across everything his eyes can see, there’s a blizzard of _feelings_ inside of him.

It’s strange. 

It’s exciting.

It’s _weird_. 

Judar easily shakes off any lingering feelings of weirdness with ease though, because he’s nothing if not adaptable. He’s mostly okay with feeling okay. He’s mostly accepted how things are, really. 

He easily clears the upper four floors, poised to snipe the surveillance guards and the company’s president from the neighboring building. Without anybody to alert the rest of the building to an intruder, it’s laughably easy to just waltz in from the rooftop, his back rigid and stiff with huge steel containers strapped to the length of his body. He reassembles his minigun in a breeze, deft fingers used to do this routine.

He’s welcomed by screams and he welcomes those screams in return.

His ears ring with cries of agony, pleas for salvation and the hum of bullet cases steadily dropping to the pristine floors now carpeted by dull, sticky red.

It’s strange because everything is so easy for him, as usual, but he feels that excitement continue throbbing underneath his pulse.

He makes his way to the ground floor, the blood from upstairs dripping into the walls and seeping into the floors and flooding into the emergency staircases. As expected of a construction company that uses cheap materials and elevates the prices on the market, even their headquarters reek of imperfect architecture.

Piles of writhing, shivering people are clamoring against the tightly-shut doors, the heads-up given by the commotion upstairs rendered useless by the fact that Judar has already sealed off all entrances and exits of the building prior to his sniping. There are masses banging their hands against the doors, against the windows, but it’s all futile exercise.

He spots a redhead with eyes closed on one of the receptionist tables, her breathing as slow as possible, looking annoyingly dignified despite death staring her down. Judar shoots three bullets to her head, rendering her whole face unrecognizable. So much for dignity in death.

He makes a quick work of the remainder of this company’s workforce, not knowing whether he should laugh at how easy it is to rob people of their futures, or whether he should even care about what this company did to get in the way of the old hag and her masked men. Knowing Gyokuen, it could be something as simple as a petty squabble over a shipment of some perfume, but her retribution is always a massacre.

The tingling continues in his fingers, even as the last of the employees draw their last breath.

He stares at his hands in wonder, feeling his winter creep back into nothingness as something else claws at his vision. Judar huffs in exertion, choosing to rest on the receptionist chair, kicking off the redhead from earlier. She’s dead now and she owns nothing, not even the seat that she occupied until her dying breath.

It’s so easy to rob people of things.

No wonder it’s so easy to rob him of things as well.

There’s a pile of corpses by his feet, but he doesn’t feel nauseated or excited at the sight of them. He just feels okay, but there’s something singing inside his head, darkness practically wrapping around his eyeballs.

The doors that he has so carefully sealed off creak, nearly startling him.

He tilts his head in question, somehow knowing that whoever is on the other side of the door is _not_ from the old hag’s lackeys.

He just knows.

The intruder asks: “Who the hell are you?” 

Judar feels laughter bubbling out from deep within him.

Judar’s winter fades away, chased by the fountain of black that wraps around him and the pretty, interesting man in front of him.

***

_in spring;_

***

Judar’s spring is heralded by a burst of green.

“So _that_ ’s what it is,” Judar murmurs to himself in half-realization.

Hakuryuu rolls his eyes at him, though if confronted, Hakuryuu will surely deny resorting to such rude, petty actions.

Anyway, Hakuryuu is interesting.

He’s weaker than him – they both know it – but he carries himself with such confidence that Judar almost second-guesses himself. He’s Gyokuen’s son – that mole on his chin doesn’t lie – but he doesn’t have any sort of power. He’s powerless in this world – robbed of family by his own family, robbed of a soulmate by his own fate – but he promises to kill everyone who’s ever had to make him suffer.

It’s not Hakuryuu being delusional – it’s more of a dogged belief that he’ll still come out triumphant despite whatever life and fate shits at him.

It’s _interesting_.

Especially since he now sees more colors than he thought possible, more things that don’t irritate him outright, more reasons to not hate this world so much and just kill everyone. Oh, he still wants to kill everyone, at some base part of him, but he now sees more reasons not to.

If he kills everyone right now, he won’t learn the reason _why_ the tingles are so much stronger now that he’s with Hakuryuu.

Judar doesn’t slink back on Gyokuen’s headquarters, but he does still move alongside shadows of alleyways and decrepit buildings.

Hakuryuu is so _sheltered_ , turning his nose up at piles of garbage and lines of hookers, even as he nonchalantly flicks of the brain matter that hits his jacket when Judar literally blows the brains out of one druggie pushing a bag of cheap cocaine into Hakuryuu’s sleeves.

“You’re so _noisy_ ,” Hakuryuu complains, mouth twisted into a beautifully-ugly snarl. Judar shrugs, because _nobody_ complains about such noise when they’re dead and he isn’t blind to the way Hakuryuu’s eyes sparkle at each display of power that he shows. He isn’t blind to how underneath that sparkle is definite bloodlust, directed to Judar and the people that have been behind him all this time.

Is it because Hakuryuu’s eyes have different colors? Is that why he can see two different things when he looks at Judar?

He wants to _know_. He doesn’t ask Hakuryuu because Hakuryuu lies even to himself.

“Would you rather I tiptoe around you, Hakuryuu?” Judar asks, widening his eyes on purpose. He thinks he remembers seeing that kind of purposeful reaction during one of the commercials that caught his eyes somewhere. “But then, if I tiptoe around, you’d be mad, right?”

Hakuryuu’s glare tells him that there will be a stabbing attempt when that happens. “ _Whatever_ ,” is what he eventually grinds out. Judar almost tells him, very concernedly, that it’s bad continuously grind one’s teeth together.

“Hey, you’ll kill everyone in that organization, right,” Judar murmurs in half-wonder, half-something else he can’t discern at the moment.

“I will,” Hakuryuu promises darkly, even as he makes a shooing motion with his hands that look decidedly adorable and harmless.

Judar shrugs again as he goes on first, kicking down the neon-green door to an underground bar, _Zagan,_ following Hakuryuu’s shooing gesture and wordless request for him to take care of the commotion that will erupt downstairs in a few seconds’ time.

Hakuryuu doesn’t really _ask_ , aside from the perfunctory grousing of “what the hell are you doing” hours ago, why Judar is merrily and mostly-complaint-less-ly helping him out. 

Maybe it’s because he thinks that, like him, Judar lies to himself as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwaaaa I'm so busy but since my laptop crashed, I had to take every moment/chance to get to a computer to type stuff;;;;
> 
> this is supposed to be one long chapter divided into 4 sections, but I only managed to finish 2 orz and because I'm super excited to post stuff;;; here it is.
> 
> next up would be judar's summer & fall (flashback)
> 
> *rolls back to work*

**Author's Note:**

> \- Originally posted as a tumblr prompt  
> \- Part Two will be Judar's POV


End file.
